Erin had never imagined what a damned fool she could possibly be.
What had she imagined would happen? That in the space of time it took Turk Rogan to get off that he’d somehow decide he couldn’t do without her?
Wasn’t she a fool if she had believed that for even a heartbeat?
But maybe, somewhere inside that place where hope still struggled to burn, she’d wondered if it could happen.
Pulling into a parking space on the opposite side of the bar than from where she normally parked, Erin drew in a deep breath. She told herself she wasn’t going to act any differently than she had before. Once she left the car her hands would not shake, her heart would not race.
She’d been trained to rein in such a show of nerves before her stepfather had allowed her to join the Covert Information Network.
Another hard breath and her heartbeat slowed. With her body under control she opened the door and stepped from the car. A second breath and her emotions stilled. They no longer raged through her, no longer tormented her.
By the time she stepped into the employee’s entrance and relocked the door behind her, she was her normal calm self. Just as she had been trained to be and she was ready to return to the mission she’d been assigned.
She was there to ascertain the security and efficiency of the agents in charge of gathering the information that came through the club. That was all she was there to do.…
She hadn’t been sent to fall in love.
* * *
Turk watched the cameras, his eyes narrowed as Erin parked on the opposite side of the bar than he’d parked. She sat there for a moment before exiting the vehicle. She was calm, poised, no anger, no sense of betrayal showing on her expression as she entered the employees’ entrance.
There wasn’t so much as a hint of nerves.
Dressed in her customary skirt, vest, and white shirt paired with black, low heels, she was so damned sexy she almost took his breath away.
Her red-gold hair was piled atop her head, fringes framing her face, and if he looked close enough he’d see the little mark he’d left the night before, just below her delicate ear.
“She barely looks old enough to work here,” the director of the Covert Information Network, J. D. McConnell, stated rather blandly.
“She’s old enough,” Cooper assured him. “You approved her application yourself.”
J.D. snorted at the reminder. “I didn’t say she wasn’t old enough…”
“She didn’t do it!” Turning to the two men Turk could barely restrain the anger building inside him.
Son of a bitch! What was wrong with him?
Lifting a brow curiously, J.D. focused his attention on Turk. And that was never a comforting place to be. Penetrating, cool blue-gray eyes stared back at him as the director’s imposing features remained remote, nearly expressionless.
“Who else would have?” Cooper asked then, his voice dark with his own anger.
The Broken Bar was his, the men he worked with were the last of the unit he’d once fought with.
“It’s not in her nature.…”
“Or are you just too involved with the woman to see the possibility of the deception?” J.D. asked coolly. “You weren’t quite out of the cameras’ field of view the night before last when you were all but fucking her in the parking lot.” There was a hint of emotion in his voice then.
Disgust perhaps?
Turk glared back at him for long, tense moments.
“Are you accusing me of something, director?” he asked then, stilling the urge to say more.
“Of playing with the girl, perhaps?” The other man rose from his chair, like a predator moving into place for the kill.
Tall, leanly muscled, middle age had done nothing to detract from J.D.’s powerful presence.
The white dress shirt he wore tucked into dark gray slacks presented an appearance of thin civility. It was damned thin though.
“I thought we were here to discuss Ms. Masters’s attempt to disengage the club’s security?” Cooper growled as Turk and the director stared back at each other in growing tension.
“Mr. Rogan doesn’t seem convinced she’s capable of the act,” J.D. pointed out calmly. “I’d like to know why. Is it because he believes in her innocence or because he wants to protect any chance he’d have to get into her bed?”
The bastard.
The icy mockery in the director’s tone was starting to piss him off.
“Have you slept with her, agent?” The question had Turk’s back teeth clenching.
“That has nothing to do with why I believe in her innocence,” Turk argued.
But was it the truth?
Something had happened to him when he’d realized he’d nearly forgotten a condom before taking her. Something he couldn’t explain, even to himself.
“I asked you a question,” the director stated, his voice growing colder. “Have you slept with her?”
“None of your business,” Turk growled.
J.D. nodded slowly, as though the question had somehow been answered before turning to Cooper. “Call her in please.”
Turk grimaced, knowing what was coming.
He should leave. If he stayed, he may end up hurting her further. Because seeing the hurt in her face was only going to piss him off more. And that more just may be the stick that broke the barrier he’d placed around his emotions years before.
And how that had happened, he’d be damned if he knew. One thing was for sure though, nothing good could come of it.
Turning his back on the two men, as Cooper made the call to Jake, he glared out the window of the office, teeth clenched, that anger building in his gut until his stomach clenched and his muscles ached.
“She’s on her way,” Cooper announced.
Turk waited, feeling that inner wall grow thinner, emotions surging behind it, anger battling at it.
Emotions.
Son of a bitch, he didn’t want to know what those emotions were, nor did he want to deal with them.
A brief, light knock at the office door and Cooper’s permission to enter ended the brief solitude he’d managed to wrap around him, and the moment of reckoning arrived.
* * *
Erin stepped into the office, only barely managing to contain her shock as she recognized the tense, furious set of her stepfather’s expression.
She was certain Cooper likely missed the rage brewing in J.D.’s gaze, but she didn’t. That lighter blue-gray was a sure giveaway that an explosion was imminent.
Cooper sat back in the chair behind his desk, a frown on his face, his gaze sliding briefly to the third occupant next to the window.
Turk.
She looked away from him quickly, closed the door behind her, then moved with a confidence she certainly didn’t feel, until she stood several feet from Cooper’s desk.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked, keeping her voice at its normal cadence, the nerves beginning to build in her stomach tightly contained as she stood relaxed, her arms at her sides as she met her boss’s gaze.
“Erin, we seem to have a problem.” It was J.D. that moved from where he stood to the corner of the desk to face her.
Damn, he was really pissed off.
She lifted a brow slowly, watching from the corner of her eye as Cooper slowly tensed in his chair at the familiarity in J. D. McConnell’s tone.
“Really?” she murmured. “What sort of problem?”
She could feel Turk moving closer until he invaded her peripheral vision, then moved with a stealthy silence until he stood several feet from Cooper, a dark, steady watchfulness in his deep-brown gaze.
Oh, hell, it was obvious J.D. had not informed them of exactly who she was and what she was doing there.
J.D.’s smile was all teeth.
Oh, God, what had she done to deserve this? Whatever the hell was coming, it was obvious her stepfather wasn’t just angry, and he’d gone past furious.
“You’ve been accused of placing an electronic device designed to reroute the camera feed over the bar to an as-yet-undisclosed location after the club was closed last night.”
Her gaze jerked to Turk. They had worked together last night. He would have known better.
“The programming was done from this office,” Cooper interjected, his voice dangerously soft. “You were out of Turk’s gaze for approximately thirty minutes while taking the trash and soiled rags to the back door, then the time it would have taken you to collect your purse in the lounge across the hall. All recordings from the time just before you left the bar area until this morning were rerouted and erased from this system.”
Erin remained silent for a second before looking slowly to her stepfather. His jaw was clenched, the savagely hewn curve not unlike Turk’s as well. Both men were silently holding back their fury, and there was little doubt it seemed directed at each other.
She drew in a slow, deep breath. “Not one time did I enter this office, or any other office while out of the bar area,” she informed them. “I took the soiled rags and trash to the back door, collected my purse, then went to the employees’ bathroom to brush my teeth and collect a breath mint before returning to the bar and leaving.”
“You brushed your teeth?” Cooper asked slowly, disbelievingly.
“I did.” She nodded. “When I returned to the bar I then looked up at the camera, winked at it as I do every night before leaving, then preceded Turk from the bar. He locked up, followed me to my car, then we drove to town. I didn’t return to the bar, nor did I enter your office or mess with the cameras.”
“Why the hell did you stop to brush your teeth before leaving the bar?” Cooper snapped as though she would lie about it.
“Because I wanted to,” she answered, barely holding back a confrontational tone begging to escape.
“Something you never do any other time,” Cooper growled as Turk slowly glanced to the ceiling as though daring to pray. “I’ve checked the video of previous weeks, Ms. Masters, to ascertain your schedule. If you brushed your teeth last night…”
“She did.” The snap in Turk’s tone had Erin glancing to her stepfather once again.
He still wasn’t happy. If nothing else, he was becoming dangerously furious.
“How the hell do you know?” Cooper jerked around to glare at his security agent. “You were in the bar.”
“Come on, Cooper,” Turk bit out, his expression tightening as his shoulders tensed further. “She brushed her teeth, dammit, and I know she did. Let it go at that.”
“I want to know why.…”
“Because he kissed her before following her to her apartment where he stayed approximately forty-eight minutes before sneaking back to his own like some damned thief.”
Erin flinched at the pure fury reflected in J.D.’s tone now.
“And this isn’t some simple-minded little girl you’re accusing of treason, Cooper. She’s my damned daughter and here at this fucking club by my order.”
“Stepdaughter,” she felt the need to interject as shock rippled through the room and filled Cooper’s gaze.
J.D. turned that glare on her then. “My daughter.”
Erin lifted her hand, covered her eyes, and gave a brief, agitated sigh.
Oh, boy, he’d just screwed this puppy right, hadn’t he?
Silence filled the office.
Lowering her hand she shot her stepfather an irritated look before shaking her head wearily.
“Thanks, J.D.,” she muttered mockingly before turning to Cooper. “I’ll collect my things and leave immediately.…”
“He didn’t hire you, little girl, I did,” J.D. snarled, turning on her with a glower that had caused much more seasoned agents to back down immediately. “He has no power over that decision.”
“Really, J.D.?” she questioned him with amazement. “You didn’t even let the owner know I was coming because it behooved you to take the time out of your busy schedule, then ordered me not to. Do you really think he wants me here now?”
“I’ll be damned if you’ll stay,” her stepfather growled, “after what that bastard pulled last night.…” He stabbed his finger in Turk’s direction.
“Were you there?” she snapped back at him, mortified.
God, how had he known?
The heat that filled her face was beginning to set a flame to her temper.
“I didn’t have to be there, your handler was.” Her handler? Her stepbrother? Oh, God, this was getting worse by the second.
“And that misfit stepbrother of mine can go to hell for all I care.” She stepped forward, all but going to her toes to go nose-to-nose with him. “He’s always overexaggerating everything. He does it just to piss you off.”
“Are you trying to tell me Rogan”—he flicked his hand at Turk—“didn’t seduce his way into your bed last night?”
“I can tell you unequivocally he’s never been in my bed.” For the first time she was damned thankful he hadn’t joined her in her bed.
“Is he gay?” J.D. snarled then.
Erin backed down and stared at her stepfather in complete shock.
“I’m calling Mom,” she muttered before turning back to Cooper and the complete disbelief that seemed to be frozen on his face.
“What in the hell is going on here?” he asked her with impressive control as his gaze moved from her to J.D.
“My stepfather likes to think he somehow has a right to monitor my morality I guess,” she answered shortly. “We disagree on that. Often. But that was none of your business, just as he should have never sent me in here without informing you of my identity and the job he sent me here to do. Which was to monitor you and your agents’ efficiency in gathering intel from the various suspects that often spend their evenings here. In my own defense, the CIN does employ me as well though. So I really had no other choice but to keep my mouth shut.”
Turk cursed under his breath; the latent anger that filled the single, explicit word did cause a light flinch to ripple through her before she stilled it.
“I didn’t give you leave to reveal that information,” J.D. stated stiffly.
“You should be committed, J.D.,” she informed him caustically. “You’re a hazard to yourself, your employees, and the world at large. Now I’m going home before I kill you myself and take that pleasure from someone who actually deserves to go to prison for it.”
Turning, she left the office, furious, offended, and certain J.D. had just destroyed every iota of friendship she’d found in Simsburg.
* * *
J.D. let the smile he was holding back slip free as the door slammed behind his stepdaughter only to be followed by Rogan’s exit as well. Damn, he was crazy about that girl. She had so much of her mother’s fire and flash temper that he couldn’t help but be wary of her as well though.
“Drink, J.D.?” The cool drawl of Ethan Cooper’s voice sounded as if a smile turned into an amused quirk as he turned back to the man he’d been friends with since Cooper was a kid barely out of diapers.
“You’re pissed,” he stated.
He could always tell when Coop was pissed. It was a look the other man had, the way his eyes seemed to still, a hardening of his jaw.… Nope, Coop wasn’t very happy at the moment.
“You’re messing with my club, my agents, and my staff,” Cooper snapped as he moved to the small bar at the corner of the room. “I don’t appreciate it.”
J.D. lifted a brow, though he wasn’t really surprised that Cooper had come to feel protective of Erin. It was the same reaction most men displayed toward her mother, Esme, as well. They had a way of drawing a man’s protective nature out, whether the males wanted it drawn out or not.
“Of course you don’t, neither would I,” J.D. assured him as he accepted the whiskey the other man handed him even as he noticed the glimmer of surprise in his eyes.
“Then why do it?” The deepening of his voice was another sign of his disapproval, if not his anger.
Turning, J.D. resumed his seat, propping his ankle on the opposite and staring back at Cooper for a long, silent moment.
“I always send backup up to watch out for her, and my son John D. usually takes that duty,” he stated as Cooper returned to the desk and sat down as well. “It would kill Esme and I if anything happened to her. John D. has been watching Turk and Erin dance around each other for three months now, and that’s something she never does. That, added to the anomalies showing up here, and I’m damned concerned. It was better to get the truth out in the open and have it done with rather than hanging over her head where that boy’s concerned.”
“That boy?” Cooper grunted mockingly. “I don’t think I’d call Turk a boy and let him hear it.”
J.D. chuckled at the thought of the agent’s reaction should that happen.
“Probably not a good idea,” he agreed. “But, she loves him. Let her have her chance.”
“And you know this how?” Cooper was obviously not of the same mind-set.
“And he loves her.” J.D. grinned. “I have the pictures John D. sent of the two of them whenever they were working together. Trust me, it’s been like seeing me and Esme all over again. And that’s a fine agent, a good man. I couldn’t have chosen better for her myself.”
To which Cooper gave him a wry, mocking look. “Well hell, J.D., sounds to me like that’s exactly what you’ve done.”
J.D. only smiled.
Some things, he thought, people just needed a little help with.
Just sometimes.